Daily Times

The fate of tens of thousands of people seeking asylum at the United States’ southern border will, from Friday, hinge on an app that has just 2.5 stars in the App Store. For immigration managers, a sleek, computerized way to manage the wave of people expected to arrive when Covid-era rules lapse must have been tempting. But for poor, exhausted people whose phones don’t work, or who have no access to wifi or electricity, it’s just another almost-impossible hurdle. “It’s amazing that an app practically decides our lives and our future,” Jeremy de Pablos, a 21-year-old Venezuelan who has camped out in the Mexican city of Ciudad Juarez for weeks, told AFP. De Pablos, who has dark skin, said the hardest part of using the CBP One app was the facial recognition — an issue that many migrants with darker complexions have pointed to. “It’s like a game of chance. It recognizes who it wants to.” President Joe Biden’s administration launched the Customs and Border Protection app in January, as it eyed a way to manage the expected chaos when Title 42 expires overnight Thursday into Friday.